


almost met; always missed

by ohfiitz



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Origin Story, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Reunion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-02
Updated: 2014-12-02
Packaged: 2018-02-27 21:07:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2706797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohfiitz/pseuds/ohfiitz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is how they meet: almost and not quite and <i>always</i>; in pieces and with a burning sense of completion. Somehow, it all makes sense.</p><p>(Inspired by 'An Origin Story' by Sarah Kay and Phil Kaye, which is also where the title comes from.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	almost met; always missed

They meet like this:

Second semester. Freshman year. S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy. They have been on each other’s radar since before school even started, both being the youngest cadets and all. They initially avoided each other, though. Perhaps it was nervousness, perhaps it was the childish instinct to compete, but the force between them – whatever it was – had always felt strong,  _too strong_ , that neither of them actually bothered to acknowledge the other’s existence before they get paired for chem lab.

And then they’re there, awkwardly staring at each other from opposite sides of a workbench without uttering a single word. When they do, they speak at the same time:

“Fitz.”

“Simmons.”

 

——

 

They don’t meet when they’re five, but they bump into each other when they both run towards a voice calling “Fitzsimmons!” during the Euro Disneyland opening in Paris.  _I’m sorry_ , they say.

And that’s it.

 

——

 

They don’t meet at the 1996 International Science and Engineering Fair at Tucson, Arizona, in which he wins the Grand Award for Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, and she wins the one for Biochemistry. They never cross paths, although they hear their names spoken around,  _“_ _that nine-year-old girl who’s already headed to university”_ ,  _“that scrawny Scottish kid who snarked his way out of a potential college scholarship”_. She goes to the University of Cambridge after that, only hearing of the kid who was almost granted the same scholarship as hers but “lacked social aptitude,” and he moves to Cambridge, Massachusetts to study at MIT.  

 

——

 

They still don’t meet at sixteen. Simmons gets her second PhD a little too early, and suddenly it feels so real. Suddenly she feels so heavy and grown-up and  _different_ , and suddenly she needs something to remind her of the beauty of life. So one summer day during a trip to New York, she gets a tattoo. Four words, in tiny script, inked on her right wrist: “no energy is created”. A few days later, Fitz strolls into the same tattoo shop and spots the piece of paper with a scribble of her design. He smiles at the familiar phrase and at the memory of his father whispering the same thing to him every night before he died. “Remember that, Leopold,” his dad used to say. “Remember that you’re made of the same stuff that built the earth”. And so he gets his own tattoo, four words, in tiny script, inked on his left wrist: “and none is destroyed”.

(Years later, she would ridicule him for choosing a statement that is grammatically incomplete.)

( _But it is_ , he would answer, wrapping his fingers around hers.  _It is now._ )

 

——

 

They meet like this:

She’s waiting. He’s back from Australia with Coulson and Trip and Skye. She tends to Trip first while the others debrief, and then she waits. If they’re being honest, they have been waiting for each other for months. It’s been a long process, and she’s tired of it all. So she heads to the BUS, to their abandoned lab, and paces.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

It’s all she can manage, and she’s running to him, fitting into his arms like they have been waiting for her (they have), and Fitz holds her with the kind of affection she only knew through his eyes until this moment.  _I’m sorry_ , they say. Together. Over and over. Over and over, until it’s not enough and she’s pulling back from his hold and pressing quick, frantic kisses to every inch of his face she can reach. Forehead. Nose. Cheek. Jaw. Beneath his eyes. The corner of his mouth. And then his lips. It’s cautious at first, just a tentative brush of skin against skin, two old friends who have been teetering around the edges of  _more_ for years. But their thoughts are in-sync for the first time in months and he eagerly responds, hands on her waist pulling her closer, mouth moving with hers in a dance he’s more than happy to keep learning.

They break apart at one point, but they don’t let go. They’ve done enough of that. She means to tell him something but the tears are making it hard to speak, so he says it for her:

 

_Welcome home._

 

 


End file.
